My take on the K-film Jenny & Juno (제니,주노 )

9:48 am

This blog post
contains spoilers.

I’ve been making up for two years worth of putting off
watching a lot of TV shows & films of all sorts these days. Day before
yesterday I got around to finally watching a Korean film called Jenny & Juno (available on youtube
with English subtitles the last time I checked, which was day before yesterday).
To be honest, the very first time I had heard of this movie, my first reaction
was “which one is the guy?" (for I knew one was a guy) seeing that they both
are, how do you say, um, Western names. Juno is, in case you’re wondering as
well.

This movie is about teenage pregnancy (which made me wonder
if there was something about movies with the name “Juno” on the title) and
revolve around a teenage couple in high school—yes, you guessed it, Jenny and
Juno! The film begins with (like the American film Juno), the girl in question taking the pregnancy test and realizing
that she is, in fact, pregnant. Anyways, so then she goes and tells her
boyfriend, Juno about it and he freaks out in the beginning but then she pretty
much sits him down and tells him that it is their
problem (as opposed to, I guess, just Jenny’s) and that they (a) have to
deal with it together and (b) cannot run away from it. So far so good. Juno
then does this whole thing of declaring his love for Jenny in front her entire
class. That scene, I think, is supposed to be much sweeter than I found it…but
then again, I suppose it was put in to please high school couples and not some
23-year-old blogger.

After watching a video on abortion, the high school couple
decided to opt against abortion and give birth to the baby and, I suppose, raise
it. And then follows the usual stuff we see in most movies/tv shows about pregnant
women—the girl craving for all sorts of food, the guy running to get it for her
in the middle of the night etc (yes, I know, I thought of Salam Namaste at one point, but in this film, the guy wanted to
play the dad and he didn’t crib, not even once). They even go watch pregnant
parents excising from behind a glass and try and imitate that.

Eventually, we hear that Jenny (or should I say “Jae-in”
like her father insists I do) has an older sister (well, she has two—one who is
20 years old and lives in the same house as Jenny/Jae-in & their parents
and one who is the oldest and is married & lives in the US with her
hubby…and we are talking about the oldest in this scene) who never shares
screen time, is struggling to conceive, and that really stresses out Jenny’s mom. I’m not sure why it would stress
that mom to the extent it does but then I reasoned that perhaps she really
wants to be a grandma (of course, then my brain went like—well, that’s one
problem solved!). I should probably get into the family background of Juno,
which is simply this—a mom and a dad, both working, no siblings. Juno also
provides funny moments every now and then when he tried to interrupt his
parents from, erm, shall we say, making him a baby brother (as said by the characters
in the film themselves; and also, might I add “hypocrite!”) because he is
scared that if his baby brother will be born after his baby, “the family tree
will get messed up”. I rolled my eyes at his wonderful reasoning.

Anyway, the movie progresses, we see how Jenny and Juno love
each other, how Jenny gets the pregnant woman cravings, how they haven’t told
anyone about their pregnancy (and yet roam around the city all day talking
about the baby out loud) and I reach a point where I wonder why her tummy isn’t
showing. But then I assume that it’s still the earlier months.

Moving on. Time goes by and Jenny’s sister finds out that
she’s pregnant…how she found this little info is a little… well, I’ll just tell
you. Jenny, who seems to have an aversion towards trousers/shorts/skirts/any
lower half of the garments other than the basic underwear every time she’s in
her room (that is unlocked and people keep barging in) is in her bathroom,
looking at her tummy when her sister barges in without knocking (she never knocks) and holds out a maternity
belt and demands to know why Jenny’s been using it. Then she looks at Jenny’s
tummy and asks her why it looks the way it does. Jenny is shocked, and I am
puzzled. Looks like what exactly?
It’s flat and it has no marks and what the hell did that woman see? We never
find out.

Jenny convinces her sister to let her tell their mom this
news first, which the sister agrees to. Then she tells Juno.

They eventually tell both sets of parents the truth. Turns
out that they didn’t tell their parents about the pregnancy because they were
scared that they’d ask Jenny and Juno to abort their child. Also turns out that
Jenny is 6 months pregnant. Where is this baby hiding? Her tummy is flatter
than a blackboard! But I think it’ll start showing around the 8th
month and I try not to wonder about that bit. I am really amazed that how none
of the parents really say anything
you know. They’re angry, yes but that anger is very mild… In Juno, Juno’s parents reacted! These people meet over at a restaurant
over dinner and decide that (a) if, ten years later, when Jenny and Juno are 25
years old, they still love each other, they can get married and (b) Jenny will
go to the USA to deliver her baby so that “no one here will get to know”. Jenny
and Juno object to all this, obviously.

Anyway, Juno tells some friends over at school about their
soon-to-be-parents state and the friends are supportive. Well, more than just
supportive. When Juno gets scared that Jenny will be sent off to the States,
the friends sneak Jenny out of her house confinement and sneak her of to get
married. What seems to be the entire school is there for the wedding. I must
say, that wedding sure was sweet. Slightly unreal perhaps, a whole load of
15-year-olds, just getting together with a LOT of balloons and exchanging vows
(a little like the 2nd grade weddings one so often hears about, I
thought). But it still is sweet…it looks very beautiful visually.

Anyway, they don’t tell their parents about the wedding
either. I wont get into a lot of detail of what happens after this…it’s just
Jenny’s parents trying to sneak her off to the States and Juno trying not to
let that happen. And then Jenny’s water breaks. She’s rushed to the hospital
and the child is born. Oh, and even while she was in labour—flat belly.

Then we see that the time frame of the film has skipped
forward just a tad bit. Juno seems to be slogging his ass off studying because
he wants to be a good dad and be successful and provide for his child. Makes
sense. Then Jenny comes, massages his shoulders and, at least in my eyes, puts
more exam-relates-performance-pressure on Juno saying, “SNU (Seoul National
University) won’t do. It has to be Harvard.” Juno smiles and I think that man,
he must really love her. Why isn’t
Jenny studying? Doesn’t she want to get into college, I think. Doesn’t she want
to provide for the child the way Juno does? Have they been through the
gender-wise division of labour chart and mapped out how Juno must “provide” and
Jenny must raise the child? Maybe. Except then the next scene makes the
audience think that it’s the grandparents who have taken more care of the
child. And then the film ends.

It’s an average film, at max. There are a lot of things are
confusing, shouldn’t have been there, could have carried out well. But it’s not
bad either. It talks about the right of parents, no matter age, to keep their
child if they want to (I guess, I’m not entirely sure) and, well, it’s quite
cute and funny in places.

My ratings for Jenny & Juno: 3/10 You won't be missing much if you let this one pass.